Dove 1

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US spacecraft nr:

Launch data:

Description:

• The Dove program demonstrates the use of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components for spacecraft construction. Dove-1 has a mass of about 5.5 Kilograms, is equipped with solar cells and hosts an imaging payload for Earth observations. The satellite will demonstrate that a 3U satellite bus can host a small imaging payload and transmit data to the ground. The satellite was designed and built by Cosmogia Inc. The satellite is 10 by 10 by 30 centimeters in size and is capable of active attitude control.

Mission details:

• Launch delayed from October, December 2011 and Jan 23, February and April 2012.
• Orbital's Antares rocket's first launch attempt was scrubbed on Apr 17, 2013 and will be rescheduled. If successful its first stage will be the first liquid rocket launch from Wallops to space since 1974.
• Orbital Sciences has conducted a successful test flight of its Antares launch vehicle on April 21, 2013. Antares embarked on its maiden flight at 21:00 UTC, blasting off from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Virginia.
• The vehicle achieved a 237 by 258 Kilometer Orbit with an inclination of 51.61 degrees, showing a considerable error on Apogee and a small error on Perigee.
• At T+10:03, the heavily instrumented 3800-Kilogram Cygnus mass simulator was released into its orbit. Shortly before that, the four secondary payloads were released via two Poly Pico Orbital Deployers (P-PODs). The flight ended at T+18:44 after the second stage completed Contamination and Collision Avoidance Maneuvers.
• The final payload is a 6 kg 3U cubesat, Dove-1, a demonstration satellite for the San Francisco-based startup company Cosmogia Inc. which is headed by former NASA employees who had earlier been involved in developing the Phonesats. The satellite, like its sister Dove-2 launched on the Bion mission, will return on-board system health data and validate the design for future Dove satellites, which will carry remote sensing payloads. Dove-1 is expected to reenter on Apr 27.